


nothing in common

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Grant Ward casts a long shadow, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitals, Love Confessions, POV Miles Lydon, POV Phil Coulson, Past Miles Lydon/ Skye, Skoulson RomFest 2k14, skoulsonfest2k14, the Rising Tide - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2218371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles can't believe the suit is actually being nice to him.</p><p>(Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k14 - Prompt: the Rising Tide)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing in common

He spoke to Skye just two days ago.

It is a bit unnerving to have received the call from Phil Coulson – or just plain _Coulson_ like Skye keeps referring to him as. To Miles he will always be the suit. Alternatively the asshole who stranded him in China that one time.

Still, at least he called him. And he explained how to get the the hospital.

Miles had never been in a militar hospital. He finds the room thanks to the Coulson's directions. It baffles him at first, when he arrives, how open everything is. He hadn't expected to find Skye, unconscious, behind a big glass window. She doesn't look pale or particularly hurt, just resting. The suit said she had been shot in the shoulder but he was out of danger.

And when Miles arrives Phil Coulson is there, outside the glass. He gives Miles a slight nod.

"The bullet came out the other side, clean. There's no damage to the muscle. She'll just have to rest a couple of days."

Miles thinks how odd that sounds, like the suit is somehow reassuring him or comforting him.

He looks at her again. It's so weird that she is hurt. She didn't even use to catch the flu (he thought it was annoying at the moment). It's so weird that she leads this kind of life now. He wishes there was a combination of words he could use to take her away from here, from danger.

"Is she going to be okay?"

"I just told you that," Coulson says, curt.

Miles looks at him squarely. He's not going to be intimidated by someone who used to work for an organization infiltrated by fascists.

"I haven't done anything illegal," he says. And it's kind of true – he's back with the Rising Tide, but trying to walk a straighter path than last time, that was the whole point. "You have no authority over me in any way. You can't threaten me."

He fixes Miles a look – kind of like the look he gave him before he dropped him in Hong Kong well over a year ago. Against his protests Miles finds himself feeling a bit intimidated by the older, shorter man.

But then Coulson's whole posture relaxes; so much it creeps Miles out, because in their short acquantaince he has never seen the man look like anything less than a man walking around with various uncomfortable objects inserted in his ass. His face softens, he looks a little less horribly middle-aged for a moment. Miles still doesn't get it, though. He will never get it.

"Come, Mr Lydon, let me buy you a cup of coffee."

He wants to argue but Coulson has already turned around and started walking away, simply expecting Miles to follow. And Miles follows but, hey, that doesn't mean the guy has any right to _expect_ things of him, or that he'd follow his orders. Skye does, for some bizarre reason, but he won't.

The cafeteria is more like a mess, which makes sense, and Coulson indicates that he sits in one of the smaller tables while he goes get the drinks, standing out in his tailored suit against a backdrop of khaki uniforms.

Miles is still worried about Skye, of course. And angry at her. If she had accepted his offer two days ago – if she had come back to the Rising Tide, or at least quit this corrupt new form of SHIELD as she should – none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have had to go on a mission with these people (and since when is she a field agent, anyway) and get hurt like this. Skye belongs behind a laptop, helping spread the truth to the world, not in front of a bullet. Yeah, definitely not in front of a bullet.

(he'd told this to Skye, of course, not knowing how prophetic it'd turn out, just knowing that she was in the middle of a mission – and she had said that sometimes to find the truth you had to get your ass on the field, which Miles did not get at all, that sounded like apology of getting your hands dirty; he never wanted Skye to have to get her hands dirty, that was the whole idea, she shouldn't have to; and he misses her but sometimes he can't recognize her when she speaks like this)

Miles is again getting worked up about the whole thing when Coulson comes back.

He puts the cup of coffee in front of Miles.

It keeps unnerving him, the way the suit is acting.

"Why are you being nice to me?" he asks.

Coulson quietly stirs his own coffee with the little plastic spoon before answering.

"Whatever I think your character flaws are, Mr Lydon, I believe you care about Skye. I'm not so petty as to not extend my sympathy to someone with a loved one in a hospital."

Miles smirks. "Last time I saw you you acted pretty petty."

The suit gives him a smug smile in return. Okay, it might be _half_ a smile.

"I don't imagine you expect an apology for that," he says.

"No. That's not how you work, is it?"

The suit throws a glance at Miles' hand.

"How did you take off your electronic bracelet?" 

"Stopped working after SHIELD was dismanted," he says, quickly adding, "like the corrupt organization it was."

Coulson nods.

Miles is a bit ruffled that he is not easily raising to the bait. Picking a fight with a government employee (though is he even that anymore, no one in the Rising Tide is sure what the legal status of SHIELD is right now, and Skye didn't want to talk about what she knew of that) inside a military complex might not be very wise but what does he have to lose, really. He's already lost Skye. Twice.

("I'm not trying to get back together. I know you will never look at me the way you used to," Miles had told her. "That doesn't mean you have to dedicate your life to serving these people who doesn't –"

Skye had stopped him then, one hand raised to Miles' mouth. She had looked tired.)

Miles takes out his phone.

"No reception?" he asks.

"Sorry. Semi-secret facility," Coulson says. "I would have preferred somewhere else, too, believe me, but this was closest."

He doesn't understand what that entails or why the suit should be so uncomfortable by being surrounded by other army drones.

"Who are you trying to contact?" he asks, a bit suspicious.

Miles raises an eyebrow. He's not about to give up the numbers of all his Rising Tide comrades.

"You're not the only ones who care that Skye is lying in a hospital bed," Miles says, needlessly defensive, he realizes, even he realizes. But there's just so much he'd want to say to the guy instead.

The other man lets out an exasperated sigh and then keeps quiet.

"How did you know to reach me?" Miles asks him. "I mean, how did you know Skye came to see me? She said she hadn't told you."

"I'm the director of a corrupt organization, remember, I have my methods."

This guy has literally zero patience, Miles thinks.

"Because she was terrified you might find out she came to me," he says, trying to gauge a reaction from the other man's face. But he is just as inescrutable as last time. "She said she made a mistake not telling you."

"I'm not interested in discussing –"

"What? _Skye_? I don't see how we could have anything else in common."

The suit takes a sip from his coffee, eyes down, a funny expression on his face. "I wouldn't say we have Agent Skye in common, exactly."

 _Agent_ Skye. What audacity. And also, what ignorance. Not in common? This guy really has no idea what Skye thinks about him, does he.

"She's not an agent. It doesn't matter how many compromises you and your goons push her to make, Skye will never–"

Coulson leans forward on his seat. There's that fear-indulcing, hot glare once more.

"We're in a hospital, a mutual acquaintance is hurt. I bought you coffee. Is there any chance we can do without the usual vitriol on your part?"

"A _mutual acquaintance_." Miles snorts. "Thank you, I'll pay for my coffee."

"What? I can't buy the loyalty of the Rising Tide for under a dollar?"

Miles waits for him to take a jab at him about the one million he got from Centipede but it never comes. His tone could even be considered friendly, teasing. Which, of course, makes Miles hate him more.

He tries, really, (okay, he doesn't really, but he can at least pretend he tries); he looks at the man and tries seeing him like Skye sees him, the way she talks about him. He can't. He represents too many things Miles has spent his whole life fighting against. It stings a bit, that Skye – 

– and he is not idiot, he knows exactly why Skye came to him two days ago with that question. She didn't have to say it. She knew she didn't have to say it.

"You're everything I despise," he says.

"I am aware of that," Coulson replies, without venom.

Miles pauses before the next sentence comes out of his mouth, almost like an afterthought. "You're everything she used to despise, too."

The guy looks down, at his fingers laced around the plastic cup; Miles wasn't expecting that reaction. Skye had mentioned things had been a bit rocky between her and the suit lately. Maybe he thinks she still despises him. Let him think that. Skye is not good at self-flagellation, eventually she'll get tired of this. She will, won't she?

(it didn't look like that, the other day – she had looked tired and a bit hopeless but she didn't hesitate, she defended SHIELD and this man; she keeps defending them, after all this time, after how she almost died, after HYDRA, after what happened with her S.O.)

"Do you know why Skye came to see me the other day?" Miles asks.

The suit looks a bit taken aback by the question.

"I assume you offered her a job with the Rising Tide again."

He really has no idea. And god, if he can't see it, Skye is never going to point him in the right direction on her own. And that's just fine by Miles, because Skye deserves so much better than this crap. The suit thinks he knows Skye but Miles knows Skye too, and way better, and maybe Coulson hasn't realized but Skye would go to her grave without ever telling him how she really felt. She hasn't really changed in that, she's still scared of the same old things. Not that Miles is going to help the guy. Not that the guy is interested in getting any help, anyway.

"You don't even see it, do you. She's in pain."

The suit frowns, like it's the least thing he expected hearing. " _In pain_."

"I know all about your Agent Grant Ward."

"Skye told you about him."

Miles will never forget her face when she did: the hatred and self-recrimination, which Miles didn't quite understand listening to the story, only when Skye told him her reasons for coming to him.

"That's why she came to see me. Because before anything else I was her friend first, she knows that. And I knew her long before you authoritarian hypocrites appeared in the picture and started messing with her head. That's why she came _to me_. To ask me if _I_ thought there was something wrong with her."

"Something wrong with her?"

Miles hesitates. In part because Skye had talked to him in confidence. In part because he doesn't want the suit to know too much about the subject.

"Yeah, well, because I had betrayed her," he says, and it's the first time he feels like he can say that out loud. "And because that guy Ward turned out to be a traitor and a murderer, and he was interested in her. Skye asked me if there was something wrong with her, that she kept appealing to the wrong guys, bad guys. I'm not sure how I feel about being compared to a NeoNazi."

The other man narrows his eyes, like he wants to argue some point. Miles can see the muscles in his neck tensing. But then he lets it go.

"Skye came to you for... a personal reason."

"Yes. She didn't break your stupid protocol again, don't worry. It's all you care about, anyway. She came to me as a friend."

The guy looks away for a moment. Miles can see him turning something over in his head.

"I'm sorry, Mr Lydon."

"You're sorry? What?"

"She did not break protocol. And you didn't do anything wrong either. You and Skye have every right to stay in contact. I might not like it, I might think you're unreliable and selfish, but ultimately that's none of my business. And it was wrong of me to doubt Skye's loyalty because of what happened the last time our paths crossed. I apologize."

Wait, wait, wait. The suit is... _apologizing_? And he said Skye should keep seeing him if she wanted. _None of my business_. God, the guy is totally uninterested, isn't he. Miles would walk through fire for a second chance with Skye and this suit just... sits there, blissfully ignorant of what's going on.

"I really don't get you," he tells him.

"There's nothing to get."

"I guess there isn't."

Eventually and making it through minutes of uncomfortable silence they make their way back to Skye's room.

It's really late and though there's some activity Miles can see out of the corner of his eyes, the general mood of the hospital is quiet, lights dimmed. He guesses this is Skye's life now. This sort of thing.

Coulson turns to face him.

"I don't think she's going to come around tonight. You should get some rest." He leans closer to Miles, looking around. "This is not the best place for you to be right now. I'll contact you if anything happens."

Miles rolls his eyes. "And I can be so sure of that, right?"

"You don't know me very well, Miles. And I'm not about to try and prove my integrity to someone who sold the safety of a man for money. But you know Skye – as you say, you've known her longer than I have. If she wants you here, I'm not going to be able to stop that from happening, even if I wanted to."

Well, he is not wrong. 

At least that's how Skye used to be.

Miles looks through the glass. She still looks restful, rather than hurt. But he can't help thinking how small she looks in there, and how she would have never taken that bullet if she had stayed with him (if he hadn't betrayed their ideals).

"She's changed so much."

"We've all changed. You have, too. We've kept up. You've been doing good work for the Rising Tide, honest work," the suit says. Wait, is he complimenting Miles? "Get some rest. We'll call if there's any change."

Miles nods, ticked off he has to accept the infurating kindness of this man who took the person he loved the most away from him. Coulson turns his back to Miles, concentrating on a sleeping Skye behind that window.

Miles starts walking away.

Should he really leave Skye here with these people? He resents not being there for her last time; he only became aware she had almost died when Skye told him the whole story (except he suspects she didn't tell him _the whole story_ ) a couple of days ago.

He turns around, ready to give the suit a last piece of his mind, but when he does the other man is looking through the glass, at Skye, in a way that makes Miles stop in his tracks.

The expression on his face is not what Miles was expecting, at all. It's more like the face Skye makes when she is talking about her boss.

"I really don't get you," Miles mutters.

 

+

 

When he comes back to the room Skye is rubbing her eyes.

He can't believe she had to wake up without anyone there, he berates himself.

She fixes him a tired look. It's quite neutral and Coulson wonders what she must be thinking, after the day they had yesterday, after everything that's happened between them, the way he behaved.

"I only left to make a quick call to the team," he tells her, regreting having left the room at all. "I didn't expect you to wake up so soon, I'm sorry."

Skye throws a glance at the chair pushed near her bedside – Coulson's jacket is drapped over the back. She examines his face and he must look conveniently tired because she seems to accept it, that he has spent the whole night by his side. Coulson should be embarrassed by it but he isn't.

She gives him a little, shy smile and he takes the chair once more. He's worn out. His conversation with Miles hours ago still has him emotionally battered. Every bone in his body aches – he can only imagine how Skye must be feeling in turn. He's not the one with a bullet-shaped hole in his shoulder, after all.

"You feeling okay?"

Skye touches her fingers to her shoulder for a moment. Whatever answer she's searching for she looks satisfied with it. She nods. "A bit groggy."

"They sedated you so you'd be more comfortable."

Skye looks through the glass; men in army uniform outside. She seems to suddenly remember the journey here.

"Really comfy," she comments.

"I'm sorry," Coulson says. "It really was the only option. But as soon as Simmons gets here I'm sure the doctors can be convinced to release you into her care."

She nods. Coulson realizes her skin looks a bit dry, the bruise on her right cheek more evident now than after she fell to the ground.

"Do you want anything? I could find a nurse and –"

"Your voice sounds nice. So, you're not angry at me anymore?" Skye asks.

He winces, feeling mortified.

He doesn't want to think about that. He doesn't want to think about what Miles told him either. He just wants to take Skye's hand in his and be here with her, for her if she wants that.

"No, I'm not angry."

Her lips quirk upwards. "Nothing like getting shot to make peace with you, uh?"

He had stopped being angry with her a long time ago. More or less he stopped when she started bleeding all over him, his hands applying pressure on her shoulder and Skye's eyes narrowing with tiredness. She's right, getting shot had definitely made things easier. But that's not it. He hadn't known the truth then.

"I shouldn't have been angry with you in the first place," he confesses.

Skye gets her stubborn face on. "I _lied_ to you."

"You hid something from me." And god, he understands why she did. She was so wrong – the kind of question she felt she had to ask Miles. But Coulson understands why she wouldn't want to tell him.

She sits up in her bed, reaching out like she wants to touch him, his arm, but then she thinks better of it, leaving her hand there, palm pressed to the matress.

"Coulson. It's not what you think," she says, voice weak with some kind of desperation.

(no wonder, Coulson thinks; yesterday he had _refused_ to listen to her, telling her he didn't want to hear more lies from her; Skye had tried to explain and he had walked away, god, he had been such a tool)

"I know."

"You know?"

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I'm sorry for trying to get into a fight. I'm sorry for not listening to you. I didn't know you went to see Miles for personal reasons, I assumed –"

"Yes, you assumed. And you didn't let me explain. And what did you assume anyway? That I was going to leave SHIELD and go back to the Rising Tide?" His face says it all. "You're kidding, right? Tell me you did not actually think that."

Coulson swallows. He hadn't wanted to admit how much the idea scared him. Not that she might leave, but that he was disappointing her enough to make her leave.

"I know you've been unhappy lately," he says.

Skye no longer has her stubborn face on. She has her "Coulson, you're a fool" face. Which, fair enough, he deserves it. And he has had the guts to try and judge Miles Lydon, that's funny, considering.

"I don't agree with some of the decisions you've made lately," Skye says, "but that's why I spend every morning in your office going over the missions, so I can make a difference from the inside. How could you think I would quit just like that?"

"I'm sorry. I should have realized you could never. My judgement was clouded by fear."

"Fear?"

"Of losing you."

He touches his fingers against the back of Skye's hand. Her skin is soft and strangely hot.

Skye seems delighted for a moment, then she frowns, alarmed.

"Oh my god, what did Miles tell you? Because Miles is an idiot. An idiot who knows nothing, and moreover it's none of his business, or yours for that ma–"

"There's nothing wrong with you, Skye."

She stops. Coulson can feel her chest heaving with agitation. Under his hand he can feel her quickened pulse.

"What?" she asks.

"Ward's sick obsession is not your fault. Just like Miles' lack of integrity is not your fault."

Skye takes her hand away from under his touch, clasping the other over her lap, fidgety. The corner of her mouth curls into a smile, but a sad one. She closes her eyes for a moment. He wonders if perhaps he should have left the issue alone. He's pretty sure Miles, for all his faults, told her something along those lines.

"Yeah, that sounds all very logical but I'm just not feeling it," she tells Coulson, not looking at him. Looking down at her hands. "Ward said I woke up something inside him, something no one else had been able to. I can't help thinking that there's something about me that made him feel like I would be... And Miles, he's the only person who's ever really loved me, and it turns out he is essentially the opposite of what I was hoping for. So, really, maybe it's just me. Maybe I can only attract douchebags. Maybe I can't attract decent guys."

She turns her head to look at Coulson again. He shrugs.

"I'm a decent guy. Or I try to be."

Skye stares at him for a moment, running possibilities in her head. Yeah, he didn't know he was going to say that either. But he doesn't regret it.

"Very smooth, Director."

"I try to be."

Silence falls between them, but it's not charged or uncomfortable. They just need a moment to readjust to this brave new world. Coulson takes Skye's hand in his again, squeezing tightly. She moves her thumb along his knuckle comfortingly. Oh, she's trying to comfort him? _Goddamnit, Skye_.

"Come here," she says.

There's no mistaking her tone.

"You're still wounded."

Skye narrows her eyes furiously.

"I swear to god, Coulson, you'd better come here right now."

He does as told.

He stands up from his chair and leans over the bed, letting his hand fall on Skye's pillow for balance. He kisses her. Her lips are a bit cracked from the meds. He likes the way she wraps her fingers around the back of his neck, keeping him pressed to her. She slides her tongue into Coulson's mouth and he marvels at the way things have turned out for them, given the last few days. The last few weeks. He had been so afraid of doing something wrong as Director of SHIELD that he had almost lost her. He had had no idea how she really felt. But of course as soon as he heard Miles telling him about how haunted Skye was feeling – Coulson knew he couldn't let that go. Even if she didn't reciprocate. Because at least she had to know. He doesn't think he's the decent man Skye should be looking for, but that's for Skye to decide, not him. He's content to let her kiss him like she's doing right now, with joy and bravado, while he curls his fingers against the curve of her hip, under the hospital sheets, and just holds on to her.

She puts her hands on his chest, pushing him off slightly and laughing into his mouth. How long since Skye had laughed like this? Had she ever laughed quite like this? No, Coulson thinks, this is just for him. For them.

"Okay, okay, but there's visiting hours and _visiting_ hours," she points out, still chuckling. "Hospital regulation aside, I'm pretty sure snogging your boss must go against at least a dozen SHIELD protocols."

She raises an eyebrow. Coulson knows she's somehow testing him.

"Yes, but that's why you spend every morning in my office. You're the kind of person who gets to rewrite the rules."

He seems to pass the test, because Skye makes a fist into his shirt and pulls him back against her, kissing him again. He runs his hands through her hair, sighing into Skye's lips, wondering if he is man enough to avoid looking smug next time he sees Miles Lydon. He thinks he might be – or at least try to, because glaring as his faults are, Miles Lydon and him have something in common.

But then Skye wraps her arms around his middle and makes the world disappear, or makes it more present, he's not sure, but Coulson stops thinking about anything but that, the touch of her hands on the small of his back, the touch of her tongue against the roof of his mouth, and the memory of the kind of laughter he's going to spend a long time trying to coax from her again.


End file.
